Abstracts

A Cult Called Django: On The Controversial Tail Of A Transnational Bandito by Austin FisherThis article discusses the myriad cultural meanings of Sergio Corbucci’s Spaghetti Western Django (1966): by situating it as a document of an unstable, transitional national identity in 1960s Italy; by analysing its sporadic, ‘excessive’ textual make-up; and by examining the various transnational processes that have engendered and nurtured the film’s continuous reception tail in popular discourse. Relating the film to prevailing conceptions of ‘cult cinema’, it asks what significance lies in the film’s schizophrenic profile in the international marketplace, whereby its cult cachet has fed upon imitation and censorship in equal measure. Moreover, by assessing Django as a site of liminal exchange between and within national identities, the article identifies a ‘rootless’ text that has been in transit between cultures from the moment of its release into the global marketplace. A film that bespeaks multifarious acts of cultural borrowing, border crossing and translation, Django’s nomadic patterns of release, reception and appropriation are shown to bring into question both the ‘national’ and the ‘transnational’ cinematic referents.

The Last House On The Left: The Redemption Of The Remake By Claire Henry While The Last House on the Left (Wes Craven, 1972) has had a checkered history with the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), the remake of the same name (Dennis Iliadis, 2009) was passed uncut. This article seeks to explain the comparative leniency towards the remake by examining the films’ contrasting modes of violence. It argues that the key difference is that while Craven sought to condemn violence and confront the audience with it, Iliadis celebrates violence and uses it to reassure his audience. Focusing particularly on the notorious scenes of rape and revenge, this close analysis of the two films reveals significant ideological, political, and aesthetic shifts, in spite of the remake’s surface fidelity to Wes Craven’s original film. Despite its more graphic violence, the remake was able to redeem The Last House on the Left in the eyes of BBFC through its redemptive ending, assertion of family values, comically excessive ‘torture porn’ aesthetic of violence, and its return to the moral clarity and ideological divisions between good guys and bad guys embedded in Craven’s source text, The Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman, 1960).Keywords: The Last House on the Left, British Board of Film Classification, censorship, rape-revenge, torture porn, violence, rape, Wes Craven, remake.

'Til (Faces Of) Death Do Us Part by Nicolo Gallio The paper focuses on the relation between the shockumentary series Faces of Death and the subgenre of Mondo movies and relates these films to morbid curiosity and the broader discussions around death in society. Cross-cultural reception and critical response to specific films are considered, in addition to fans’ reviews. The blurring of boundaries in documentary filmmaking, the fabrication of reality, moral panics and the work of controversial directors such as Gualtiero Jacopetti are also discussed. Keywords: Faces of Death, Mondo movie, Schockumentary, death; Video Nasties, documentary, gore, Gualtiero Jacopetti, John Alan Schwartz.

House-Cleaning: Or What Its Audiences Can Tell Us About Ruggero Deodato’s Film By Martin Barker In 2006 I had the opportunity to lead a research project, funded by the British Board of Film Classification, into how naturally-occurring audiences respond to five films, chosen because they had given the BBFC cause for concern because they included scenes of sexual violence. The BBFC gave us a complicated brief, wanting to know (among other things) how responses are affected by knowing, or knowing of, the existence of other, uncut versions. This essay presents some of the results from our research, relating to the 1980 Ruggero Deodato film House on the Edge of the Park (AKA The House on the Edge of the Park) setting them in the context of the differences made to approaches and conceptualisations between American ‘effects’-driven research (the kind most influential on BBFC policy and decisions up to this point), and our cultural studies-oriented research which emphasises the locatedness of audiences. Here, I emphasise the significance of audiences identifying this as an ‘exploitation movie’, and how that guides responses to characters and events. In particular, I show the value of distinguishing between those audiences who broadly rejected the film (and whose judgements on it at least partially coincide with those of the BBFC), and those who embrace it – the ones whom in theory the BBFC ought to be most concerned with, but whose responses contradict the BBFC’s working assumptions on almost every point. The essay ends on a note of regret that, having commissioned the research, the BBFC after 2006 was changing direction, and has moved back increasingly towards dependence on old assumptions. Having accepted our research, they chose largely to ignore it. Keywords: BBFC, sexual violence, House on the Edge of the Park, audience research, ‘embracers’ vs ‘refusers’.

"People Who Think Outside The Box": British Audiences And Asian Extreme Films By Emma Pett This article considers the reception and fandom of Asian Extreme films in the UK between 2001 and 2011. The origins of the Asian Extreme category are closely associated with Tartan’s ‘Asia Extreme’ distribution label, which played a pivotal role in promoting and disseminating these films in the UK between 2001 and 2008. Since 2008, when Tartan went into administration, several academics have considered the impact of their marketing campaign on the reception of East Asian cinema in the UK (Needham, 2006; Martin, 2009; Shin, 2009). More significantly, a range of conflicting claims have been made by film critics, censors and academics about this contested genre and its audiences. This article identifies these claims and examines them in relation to the findings of a research project investigating British audiences of Asian Extreme films. In particular, it explores over 700 responses to an online questionnaire and considers the different ways in which the respondents use, negotiate or challenge the discourses circulating about audiences for this category of films. Keywords: Asian Extreme, audiences, BBFC, censorship, fanboy, fandom, genre, marketing, reception.

No Pain, No Gain: Strategic Repulsion And The Human Centipede By Steve Jones Tom Six’s The Human Centipede(First Sequence) (2009) and The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (2011) are based on a disturbing premise: people are abducted and stitched together mouth-to-anus. The consequent combinations of faeces and bloodshed, torture and degradation have been roundly vilified by the critical press. Additionally, the sequel was officially banned or heavily censored in numerous countries. This article argues that these reactive forms of suppression fail to engage with the films themselves, or the concepts (such as disgust and offense) on which those judgements are made. Six’s films are far more sophisticated than has been accounted for. These films wear their generic lineage on their grimy sleeves, contextualising conventional motifs such as the mad scientist archetype against contemporary cultural anxieties regarding the body, sex and violence. Furthermore, Six’s constructed persona exposes the interplay between commercial success, grotesquery and censoriousness as a cyclic system that can be abused. Thus, the series epitomises how repulsion can be strategically utilised. Six anticipates his detractors’ offense, and disarms them of their ability to critique his films without adding to their notoriety. The Human Centipede films demonstrate how controversy can be tactically generated to create meaning.

More Than Just A Game: Breaking The Rules In The Bunny Game by Jenny BarrettThe Bunny Game, denied a video classification in Britain in 2011, has drawn both criticism and praise for its most notable feature, the recording of apparent ‘real’ torture of a woman in the back of a truck over several days. This response examines the film’s use of documentary and expressive techniques which create a clash between ‘real’ and ‘not-real,’ and which work to exploit the objectified female actress. Debates and controversies surrounding ‘snuff,’ the ‘theatre of cruelty’ and the ‘frenzy of the visible’ are raised, whilst the director’s claim that the film is a feminist text is interrogated. Examining key scenes from the film, the article suggests that an alternative political reading can be found concerning the condition of contemporary America. Given the exacting nature of the BBFC Guidelines, it is concluded that the combination of a realist aesthetic and shocking content contributes to the unsurprising rejection of a video release in the UK.Keywords: The Bunny Game, BBFC, torture, documentary, abduction, sex trafficking, sexual violence, torture porn.